How can I make a ComboBox non-editable in .NET?

To make the text portion of a ComboBox non-editable, set the DropDownStyle property to "DropDownList". The ComboBox is now essentially select-only for the user. You can do this in the Visual Studio designer, or in C# like this:

stateComboBox.DropDownStyle = ComboBoxStyle.DropDownList;

Link to the documentation for the ComboBox DropDownStyle property on MSDN.


To add a Visual Studio GUI reference, you can find the DropDownStyle options under the Properties of the selected ComboBox:

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Which will automatically add the line mentioned in the first answer to the Form.Designer.cs InitializeComponent(), like so:

this.comboBoxBatch.DropDownStyle = System.Windows.Forms.ComboBoxStyle.DropDownList;